Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday December 24, 2012 @05:08PM
from the lets-not-do-that-again dept.

alphadogg writes "As a new session of Congress convenes in early 2013, don't expect lawmakers to rush out a new version of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or the Protect IP Act (PIPA). While some groups representing copyright holders still want to see stronger online enforcement, U.S. lawmakers don't seem to have the collective will to reintroduce similar bills and potentially face another massive online protest. In January 2012, more than 10 million Web users signed petitions, 8 million attempted calls to Congress and 4 million sent email messages, and more than 100,000 websites went dark in protest as the Senate scheduled a vote on PIPA. Lawmakers supporting the two bills baled out in droves, Senate leaders cancelled the PIPA vote, and SOPA's sponsor in the House of Representatives withdrew his legislation. 'That was an avalanche they've never seen,' said Ed Black, head of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. 'They're going to tiptoe in this area very carefully.'"

"Yeah, check is in the mail, too. honest" (No idea how to do quotes, sue me)

Now, let's talk about WDCWYTWPIA, We Don't Care What You Think, We Are Passing It Anyway which allows no term-limit on copyright, and massive fines on everyone, even if they only use a site that holds the copyrighted material. With the twinkies gone and the looming fiscal cliff, The American Public now doesn't have the willpower to stop us, so nyeh!

Lets see, back in the 60s and 70s, the copyright was a certain length and companies were ok with the bargain or they wouldn't have released anything. Now 40 years later, and they aren't happy with the bargain and retroactively change it. How would you like it if 20 years later, your house builder comes back and says, yeah, you know that price we quoted you? yeah it just went up, pay us more. Same thing retroactive copyright term extensions really do. They take non monetary benefit away from the public.

We're wiser to that sort of thing, and it won't be easy, maybe not even possible to get away with it. Even if they do pass some terrible bill, it may be struck down in court. Or it may be simply ignored.

What bothers me is these bastards are trying things they know are against the will of the majority and the public interest. When they try sneakiness, that's a sign they know an act doesn't have public support. They're supposed to represent us, not special interests. What do they prove when they ignore

This is exactly what happened with the NDAA. Harry Ried broke into proceedings a couple weeks ago and very quickly (almost too fast to understand) said a bunch of mumbo jumbo about amendments and extensions being added to some bill and then motioned for it to be accepted, it was, and then left and they went back to the former proceedings he had interrupted. In all, it took about 30 seconds. What was this bill he was so weirdly inserting something into? Bill 4310. The NDAA.

Nobody knows about it (unless they were watching CSPAN in the middle of the night during those 30 seconds and thought enough to ask what 4310 was). Nobody is accountable for it. And nobody has made a big deal about it.

This kind of "oh they won't do that again" serves the other side, not ours.

"Ours"? Methinks you presume too much.

Yeah, the US' copyright regime is fscked, but don't presume everyone's a "pirate". I advocate boycotting the bastards. Let 'em go out of business, ASAP. Support producers who don't want to enslave you, or sue you into oblivion. A quarter of a million dollar fine for dupping a DVD? Get serious. We can all do without. There's lots of stuff out that that is nowhere near as demanding.

"This kind of "oh they won't do that again" serves the other side, not ours."

I despise what the MafiAA is doing, but that doesn't put me in the pirates' camp. "Ours" presumes I am, and is wrong. Boycott the !@#$%^&*. Nobody *needs* their !@#$. Put 'em out of business. Don't play their game!

And if they did, it would only take a couple days for people to start to tune it out, and a couple more for "political statement blocker" plugins to be developed and downloaded for FF and Chrome (not by Big Brother, but by the users themselves).

is by gluing it to some defence authorisation bill, where it will be "vote for this bill or you're WITH THE TERRISTS!!!" and every lily livered suck up meat bag on Capitol Hill will fall in line and vote against the terrists and in the process destroy online file trading systems, for ever. That's how it works.

is by gluing it to some defence authorisation bill, where it will be "vote for this bill or you're WITH THE TERRISTS!!!" and every lily livered suck up meat bag on Capitol Hill will fall in line and vote against the terrists and in the process destroy online file trading systems, for ever. That's how it works.

Pathetic, I know...

Perhaps, but my guess is that in the wake of the shooting in Connecticut it would be more likely to be a bill to "save the children". Then they can lump it in with internet predator and cyber bullying laws. No one is going to have the balls to vote against that.

The shooter in CT was known to download music and movies. If only we had been able to track his movie choices properly, and note a slide towards more violent movies and video games, then we could have prevented the tragedy of 20 kindergarten children.

It's a fairly small price to pay, having each person's movie preferences checked and analysed a licensed psychologist. Mandating that devices can only play movies that have been approved by the MIAA, and music approved by the RIAA, ensures that our children w

It's not necessarily that, but feel good issues as well. During the last election, there were attack ads from a democrat aimed at Jeff Flake (who is anti sopa) saying that he voted against veterans benefits. I don't recall the particular bill, but when I looked into it, it turned out that he voted against it due to numerous other provisions which had nothing at all to do with veterans.

It's of no consequence though, as he had overwhelming support of veterans (which includes me) in the actual election, but it

What they need is something with a really good acronym. Something that everyone would want to support and none would dare oppose. 'PATRIOT' act would be a good one, if it hadn't already been used for that purpose.

The US habit of requiring cool acronyms seems a bit like a 12 year old boy coming up with cool names for their GI Joe doll's super secret stealth ninja elite team who discreetly patrol the streets in a flying tanks, pausing occasionally to subtly blow-up half of the city.

Just be glad you don't have Theresa May over there. My God, that bastard must regret being born to late to get a decent position in the GDR.

Yea it wasn't enough hence why they tried to pass ACTA next, and since its a "trade agreement". Good question how it was able to get that label. It would bypass house and senate and go right to obama's desk or slipped under bathroom stall with a very fat envelope .

We basically beat that one too, they're at like 0-4 and they're pissed. Hence we're seeing the spin campaigns starting. I think the Fiscal Cliff is crowding out the meme space, so they have to get past that one, and then we might see more updates about spring.

The RIAA and other industry groups buy support in both houses with massive political donations. They don't give it freely! They expect legislation that favors them. They bought it and they want their congressional lackies to provide what they paid for. If they don't get it they support another candidate who will give it to them. There is so much corruption in the US system now that it's no wonder the country is falling apart. The government no longer acts in the best interests of the people, but in the best interests of their largest corporate sponsors. One person one vote no longer means anything when legislation can be bought with campaign donations.

Not to disagree with that, as far as it goes, but it's a limited explanation for many reasons - for just two:

1. There are hardware manufacturers and net service providers who are also very big companies. Some of them, i.e. Intel or even Apple, are much larger than any of the RIAA or MPAA members. To understand why new copyright legislation proposals are nearly constant while new laws favoring tech giants aren't, means first understanding what the content industries offer the legislative branch which these o

There's been an ongoing effort to manufacture consent and manage public perception so that people are pitted against one another and don't grasp what their real interests are. Not only that all private media is complicit in shaping the publics view of the world and most privately owned media

I have no idea what you are talking about since I don't subscribe to any ideology. Nice fabrication there. I know both parties are sold out, but they are sold out to hard core capitalists/corporatists. i.e. they sold out 'for money'. This is the natural state of capitalist societies since capitalism is a totalizing system that erodes everything in it's path for profits.

We know that both parties are sold out, but the idea we need to go back to the golden days of 'free markets' at this point is something

There is nothing naive about thinking that "We the People", should maybe be a bit more concerned with the actions of our government. Not just during election years, and not only when the bill threatens our precious entertainment. There's plenty of other bills that should have had equally strong responses, that were basically ignored as inevitable. Heck, look at this complete laziness on the part of the Senate as it is. Yet we toss our hands up in the air and declare how we know how useless politicians a

Why should they have to tiptoe? The People have spoken loudly and clearly. They've told them exactly what they want and how they should vote. There is no tiptoeing. You either do what your employers tell you to do or you're fired. "Tiptoeing" implies that you'll still try to do it anyway, but in a way that won't piss off several million constituents.

SOPA was one of those things that 95% of the people outraged by it were only outraged because thats the cool thing to do online is jump on some bandwagon blindly because its what others do online. Its cool to dis the president online, its cool to say you hate call of duty, its cool to bash michael bay movies, its cool to hate sony online and so on just because its what everyone else does. And most people who go on a crusade just spit out the same exact thing as the next person because they dont actually kno

If they want to reduce piracy there are a few steps they can take. First off, lower prices. I stopped buying blurays or DVDs, they are too expensive. Hard drives are getting so cheap that having a digital always version is way easier. Rentals also need to be dropped in price. A good example of this is 2012. I know the movie was terrible, but this was the time of year to watch it. Not available on Netflix or other streaming. Most companies wanted $4 - $5 to rent it. Sorry, not going to dish out that

lobby interests paying serious money, versus potential voters that don't/hardly contribute.
this will be raised again and again until the funding goes away. It's not that I'm cynical, and these guys are assholes, but more like HFT games the system; those who are paying for results are making things happen over those of us who merely protest.

Of course it doesn't have the stomach for it. The US Congress collectively does not have the stomach to hold its own dick while it relieves itself. If there were no dick holders provided in the Congressional restrooms, they would all burst open from not having the balls to relieve themselves, nor the common sense to realize that they HAVE to relieve themselves. These assholes don't even have the guts to address the nation's real problems. All they do is bring up useless frill after self serving pandering bill. That is, when they can move themselves to stir from their beauty sleep at all.

Punks, that's all they are. Corrupt remains of a system which is the biggest enemy of their own population.

As it is, the rot that is inside them is enough to wipe out the population if the pustulence ever escapes into the general population. I am goddam sure what the folks in 1776 would have done with this loathsome group of bought and paid for poseurs.